Converting your WFW Groups to Existing Windows NT Machines

If you’ve ever reinstalled any Windows operating system, you’re probably aware that it will search for existing applications on your hard drive(s) and throw them into an all-purpose Applications group. If you install Windows NT directly over a Windows installation, it will automatically create the old Windows program groups.

However, if you want to install Windows NT in a different directory, the program group conversion doesn’t occur. For situations like this, we’ll show you how to leverage Windows NT’s ability to convert existing WFW program groups to Windows NT program groups after you’ve installed Windows NT.

Preparation

Suppose Windows for Workgroups exists in your C:\Windows directory and you installed Windows NT in D:\WINNT35. You need to copy all your WFW *.INI files, *.GRP files, and the REG.DAT file to D:\WINNT35.

You’ll probably want to perform a search for the *.INI files since they could be located in various directories on the C drive. For example, we received the search results for our C drive shown in Figure A. Once you’ve found the files, copy them to Windows NT’s root directory, as shown in Figure A. If you’ve previously installed Windows NT on your boot partition, don’t copy the Windows BOOT.INI file.

Please note The Windows NT system files BOOT.INI, NTDETECT.COM, NTLDR, and possibly BOOTSECT.DOS and NTBOOTDD. SYS are stored in the root of the active drive. The active drive is the hard drive that your system boots from when you turn on your PC. These files might coincide with system files of other operating systems, such as Windows or OS/2, that you’ve loaded on your computer, so be careful not to modify or delete them.

You’ll also want to perform a search for the *.GRP files and copy them, as shown in Figure B. Then, copy REG.DAT from Windows’ root directory, C:\WINDOWS, to Windows NT’s root directory.

Configuration and setup

Now, when you log in to Windows NT using a new user account, Windows NT will present you with the dialog box shown in Figure C. The WIN.INI and CONTROL.INI files specify attributes of the Windows 3.x desktop, such as screen colors, fonts, patterns, wallpaper, and custom colors. The Program Manager group files specify the *.GRP files that we’d like to convert to Windows NT.

If you don’t log in with a new user account, Windows NT will suppress the display of the Windows 3.x Migration dialog box. This is ironic, since most people who install Windows NT for the first time probably wouldn’t know how to invoke the dialog box in the first place. Therefore, we’ll show existing users how to perform a few more steps.

Mainly, what you need to do is delete the user’s profile to make the user appear as though he or she is a new NT user. Windows NT stores these profiles on the Windows NT computer that you log on to, although a Windows NT domain manages users from a central security accounts database.

For example, if you’re logging on to the PERSIA domain as JohnD from a Windows NT Workstation called LUKOS, you’ll need to delete the JohnD000 and JohnD000.LOG files located in the \<WINNT>\SYSTEM32\CONFIG directory.

After you delete JohnD’s profile files and JohnD logs on to the workstation, the Windows NT Workstation will see JohnD as a new user, locate the *.INI, *.GRP, and REG.DAT files in the root directory, and present him with the dialog box we showed you in Figure C.

Customization

If you’re like me, once you’ve figured out how to port Windows 3.x groups to Windows NT, you’d like to control exactly which groups get ported and which ones don’t. We’ll show you how to do so by editing PROGMAN.INI, one of the *.INI files that you copied to Windows NT’s root directory.

In general, you open PROGMAN. INI and go to the [Groups] section. The [Groups] section lists all the groups your Windows 3.x installation contains. To suppress a group from being ported, place a semi-colon in front of the group, changing that group to a comment line. Then, save PROGMAN.INI and log in to Windows NT as a new user in order to invoke the Windows 3.x Migration dialog box. For example, in our PROGMAN.INI file, we commented the first seven groups so Windows NT would migrate only GROUPA, GROUPB, GROUPC, and GROUPD, as shown in Figure D.

Special note After migrating groups, you may find that you’ve forgotten something that you’d like to add from the Windows 3.x environment. For example, you might be inclined to dual-boot to Windows 3.x in order to tailor a group that doesn’t have some particular program items.

Don’t simply copy the group’s associated *.GRP file to Windows NT’s root directory—Windows NT might not port the groups because they may not reflect new changes to the REG.DAT and *.INI files. As a precaution, remember to copy all *.INI, *.GRP, and REG.DAT files to Windows NT’s root—even if you’ve made only a minor change.

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve shown you how to move your Windows groups over to Windows NT. That way, you won’t end up with an ambiguous Applications group that contains every application you’ve ever used.

Figure A

You can search for *.INI files and copy them to Windows NT’s root directory.

Figure B

You’ll also want to search for and copy the *.GRP files that Windows uses.

Figure C

Windows NT presents first-time NT users with the Windows 3.x Migration dialog box.

Figure D

You can edit Windows’ PROGMAN.INI file to specify which Windows groups you want to port.

The article entitled "Converting your WFW Groups to Existing Windows NT Machines” was originally published in Exploring Windows NT, May 1996. Copyright © 1996, The Cobb Group, 9420 Bunson Parkway, Louisville, KY 40220. All rights reserved. For subscription information, call the Cobb Group at 1-800-223-8720."

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